Opponent Watch: Hoops Edition

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking "I wish someone would give me a college basketball schedule overview/viewing guide so that I would know what interesting games were coming up." Then I was thinking "I wish I had a platform—oh right."

The Status

Michigan is oh so pretty right now with wins over three quality programs headed to the tournament and a shortage of games against terrible opposition. They're second in the RPI to Duke, which is obvious because Duke has run a killer gauntlet so far. RPIforecast.com projects that Michigan will finish 11th, which is actually eighth-best nationally because that's how math works. He uses the Sagarin PREDICTOR ratings to project how the games will turn out; those currently have Michigan 7th.

This week's Michigan seed projection: 2.

The Past

The Rock. Tray Woodall confronts the 1-3-1. And there is a large CJ Leslie over there.

With many more opponents it's not practical to go through each in detail, so let's group them.

Dreck (that doesn't impact RPI)

Slippery Rock. Well done, Rock. You are not D-I, which Michigan's RPI will appreciate.

Dreck

Any hopes that IUPUI might be a decent low-major to have on the schedule (they were 118th in RPI last year) are out the window. After beating up on BG in their consolation game in the preseason NIT, the unholy combination of Indiana and Purdue lost their next five games against D-I competition. They lost to South Dakota by 20. That's not good. Their single victory is over something called Indiana East, with Indiana Northwest and Indiana State on the docket.

Filler that's not painful

On the other hand, Cleveland State is 6-2 and hanging around the Kenpom top 100. He projects CSU to go 19-11 and have a winning Horizon League record. Consistently okay teams like CSU are the sort of folks Michigan should be scheduling.

Bradley may or may not fit here as well. Pro: they are 5-2 with their only other loss against USF. Con: their best win is against… IUPUI. A Tuesday game against GW will be an interesting test.

Pitt

After Michigan beat them in MSG the Panthers blew the doors off Delaware, Howard, and Detroit. They still don't have a quality nonconference win and won't get one—a Wednesday matchup against Duquesne is the closest they'll come to an opportunity left. Kenpom has them 11th and projects a 25-6 season—beating them at MSG was a potential look at a Sweet 16 matchup.

Kansas State

K-State's schedule has been sparse so far and is about to get heavy. They beat up on South Carolina Upstate to move to 6-1; they have big neutral-ish-court matchups with Gonzaga in Seattle and Florida in Kansas City before the Big 12 schedule. Kenpom has them going 22-9, 11-7 in the Big 12—that's probably good for a 5-7 seed.

North Carolina State

Has not played since losing at Crisler. Plays Connecticut Tuesday in a game Michigan fans will be keeping a close eye on. Has fallen to 29th in Kenpom and is in the same range K-State is, though they clearly have more upside if they can just figure out how to play some defense.

The Future (Nonconference)

at least we won this coaching switch derby

Dreck. Three of Michigan's seven remaining nonconference games are solidly in the dreck category: Binghamton, CMU, and EMU. EMU's actually 5-1 so far but the best win in there is against IUPU Fort Wayne and they're about to lose a billion straight. Upcoming: Syracuse, Purdue, UIC, Michigan, Oakland, Kentucky, UMass. Have fun storming the castle. Binghamton is a disaster. Central Michigan lost to Bradley at home by 17.

Filler, not painful.On the bright side, Western Michigan has rebounded from a season-opening loss at Cornell to run off six straight wins, two of which were against quality opponents USF and Oakland. They're now projected to be above .500 in the MAC; they were 6-10 a year ago.

Arkansas

Arkansas is not good but they weren't last year and Michigan still lost. They've got 3 wins over teams in the 300 club, a 15 point loss to Arizona State, a 7 point loss to Wisconsin, and a 9 point loss to Syracuse. At Crisler it shouldn't be a huge problem, you wouldn't think—especially with some extra ballhandlers to relieve pressure on Burke.

By the by, BJ Young has one of the weirdest statlines I've ever seen: incredible usage (39% of Arkansas shots, 33% of their possessions), incredibly few turnovers (he's 14th nationally), good assists and shooting and… he plays 58% of Arkansas minutes. That just about leads the team, but I'm just like man:

That is bizarre. The guy is 3 from 19 from three after being a 41% shooter last year, so that ORtg is artificially depressed and the guy is playing fewer minutes than he did last year. If I was Mike Anderson I'd tell Young to take it easy on the pressing, but I guess it doesn't work like that.

West Virginia

Sitting at 2-3 with wins over Marist and VMI, WVU is headed for the NIT according to Kenpom. They opened the season by getting blown out by Gonzaga and then lost narrowly to Davidson and Oklahoma. They've got shots at Marshall, VT, and Duquense to establish some bonafides before the matchup in Brooklyn. Hopefully they sweep those to establish themselves potential bubble team.

The Future (Conference)

this is not your older brother's Big Ten

Well, it's pretty good you guys. The top four (M, OSU, IU, Minnesota) teams have two losses between them, both to Duke. Michigan State beat Kansas; while they've lost a couple times we're talking a fifth-best team here. Illinois is undefeated, albeit against largely shaky competition, and Kenpom loves Wisconsin because Wisconsin annihilates bad teams. They did just smoke previously-undefeated Cal, so there's that.

Iowa has disappointed—no D—and Northwestern is set to take a step back, but the only real "what happened there" going on is at Purdue, which is entirely too dependent on DJ Byrd jacking up threes and guys named Johnson who can't shoot. The three Johnsons who start for the Boilers are collectively 24% from three—freshman Ronnie has a Jan Jagla-like 2 of 22 line, except that was usually a season for Jagla. As a team, Purdue is shooting 25% from three. That does not win you many games. Beilein is in ur base, Matt Painter.

Having just graduated VT this past spring, I lived through the last 4 years of Greenburg's tenure. I had student tickets all 4 years and watched in pain as Tech looked clueless on the floor and didn't seem to know what a play was or how to rebound. Johnson has proven early what a good coach he is just by getting his team to do those two simple things.

I went to the Okie State-VPI game this weekend as a casual fan and left an avid support of James Johnson. Like Hoke in 2011, he's motivated the same kids to excel on the court. It's still early but I'd like to see how they fare at WVU.

That's a 9 game stretch in which we play the teams currently ranked 1, 7, 13, 14, and 19, away, plus Wisconsin, whom Michigan's never beaten at the Kohl Center, plus the #7 team at home. If we get through that stretch with 3 losses or fewer, it will be incredibly impressive. In fact, getting through it with fewer than 3 losses would probably pave our way to a #1 seed.

I think it has to do with us not being projected to be ranked at #2 or 3 by the end of the year.

Plus, Indiana, OSU and Michigan will all beat each other up throughout the season/BTT. If Michigan wins out, we'll be the 1 seed. If not, we'll still have looked good enough to be a 2. But M, OSU, and Indiana won't all have good enough records to be 1 seeds.

he meant they'd be undefeated heading into the tourney. Indiana is the last team to make it through the regular season and tourney undefeated. Indiana St in '79 and UNLV in '91 were both undefeated heading into the tournament - not sure if there are others.

I was trying to think, if IU and Purdue copulated, which would be on top and which on the bottom. Since Purdue is a train, that would seem to put them on top. And then I thought about Indiana's logo, which is basically hermaphroditic. So, I guess that means IUUI is one of those congenitally defective children with one X and two Y chromosomes.

"You will suffer humiliation when the team from my area defeats the team from your area." -- The Onion

But don't sleep on Eastern. They were picked to duke it out with Toledo for the MAC West(before anyone had a look at Western's freshmen). They just might win a couple of the games you listed, and they will do well in the MAC.

However, I could see them beating Oakland and maybe UIC. Interestingly enough, Kenpom gives EMU a better shot of beating Purdue than UMASS, though that may have to do with the venue (home vs. PU, at UMASS).

"The difference between a man and a boy is, a boy wants to grow up to be a fireman, but a man wants to grow up to be a giant monster fireman."